The S&P 500’s bull market turned 3,453 days old on Wednesday, making it the longest such streak in history, according to some investors’ definition.
The market index, which tracks the 500 biggest public companies in America, set a new record with an intraday high of 2,873.23 points on Tuesday, slightly higher than the previous record of 2,872.87 point on January 26 of this year. However, the market closed on Tuesday at 2,862.96.
Wall Street is widely considered to be in a bull market that started on March 9, 2009, making it the longest running bull market in US history. According to some investors, the S&P has gone 3,453 days without a fall of 20 per cent of more.
Since March 2009, the index has more than quadrupled.
The S&P 500’s bull market turned 3,453 days old on Wednesday, making it the longest such streak in history
S&P 500 performance is seen over the past five years. The benchmark index hit a record intraday high on Tuesday
An electronic display showing the final market figures and a graph of intraday trading at the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell on August 12
However, investors are debating on how long the bull market has really run.
Bull and bear markets are identified only retroactively, and it is too soon to say for certain whether a correction in the S&P 500 in February marked the end of the bull market and the start of a bear market.
To be sure that the S&P 500 is still in a bull market, it would have to close above its record high set on January 26, which it failed to do on Tuesday when it closed at 2,862.96 points.
‘That potential new high is important,’ S&P Dow Jones Indices analyst Howard Silverblatt wrote in a research note. ‘(If) we drop 20 percent before we reach a new high, we will go back and declare that the current bull market ended on January 26, 2018, the last high.’
Wednesday’s record is also debatable because Wall Street experts define bull and bear markets differently.
Some experts say a bull market occurred from 1990 to 2000, which would make the current one the longest ever. Others say that bull market started in 1987 and ran to 2000, which would be three years longer than the current bull market.
Trump tweeted his excitement over the news on Wednesday, writing ‘congratulations America’
Industry experts have attributed Apple to helping the S&P 500’s bull market saying the company founded by the late Steve Jobs (pictured) is responsible for 4.1 per cent of the index’s return
Experts have said the the bull market hit its longest run as the economy continues to strengthen under Trump and don’t expect things to dip as Trump discusses additional tariffs on Chinese imports
Regardless, the S&P remains up more than six per cent so far this year. Since March 2009, it has risen 325 per cent thanks to companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.
‘The bottom line is that the US is doing well – and much better than any other market,’ said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at the S&P Dow Jones said, according to BBC.
Apple is responsible for 4.1 per cent of the S&P 500’s return since March 9, 2009, more than any other company. Microsoft is second, with a 2.4 per cent contribution, according to Silverblatt.
Investors say the bull market hit its longest run as the economy continues to strengthen under president President Donald Trump. Even as Trump discusses slapping additional tariffs on Chinese imports next week, investors believe the market index will continue its streak.
‘The three Ts, Trump, tariffs and trade, are sort of a wet blanket on the embers of growth, but … the market can still go higher,’ said Greg Luken, CEO of Luken Investment Analytics, according to CNBC. ‘Bull markets don’t die of old age; they die of euphoria and we’re nowhere near euphoria.’